This invention relates to a caster and particularly to improvements for simplifying the construction of a caster having a cushioning effect.
To facilitate changing the movement direction, casters are sometimes attached to transport devices such as baby carriages or to objects to be moved. Generally, casters comprise a fixed bracket to be fixed to an object to be moved with the aid of the caster, a rotary yoke supported for rotation around a vertically extending axis relative to the fixed bracket, and a wheel rotatably supported by the rotary yoke on a horizontal axis disposed at a position horizontally deviating from said vertical axis.
What is demanded of such caster particularly in a baby carriage, is to exert a cushioning effect in the wheel. To this end, in the past, a cushion spring has been installed to act between the rotary yoke and the axle of the wheel. For example, the axle, rather than being attached directly to the rotary yoke, is held by a wheel attaching member urged in a desired direction by a cushion spring, the axle being held by the rotary yoke through said wheel attaching member.
However, such conventional typical cushioned caster requires separate parts, such as the wheel attaching member, for providing a cushioning effect, so that the number of parts correspondingly increases, forming an obstacle to simplification of the caster. Further, the function of the wheel attaching member is not always assured, sometimes failing to achieve the desired result. Moreover, the cushioning mechanism is liable to go wrong.